Warning! Chapters 15-17 were all posted back-to-back. Returning Readers, make sure you pick up where you left off!
Chapter 17 – Projects
Rylia, Kara and Momo stared out over the salvage dock, taking it in. Unlike the scrapyard that Rylia had purchased and cleaned out on Nevos, this was an orbital reclamation yard, meant for breaking down large ships. It was in rough shape, including one entire dock being offline due to damages caused when an idiot had fucked up while guiding a wreck in for salvage. Which, as it happened, explained how Momo had been able to purchase the sprawling ship breaking facility at all.
The owner had defaulted on loans, and Momo had worked various backroom deals to get her hands on the station for a fraction of its theoretical value. Of course, she hadn’t had to fight too hard or burn too many favors, given that it would take a lot of money to get it fully operational again. Or, well, it normally would at least. Momo had run the math and worked out that this was the best way to get consistent large chunks of credits for the Omniversal Marketplace.
Using that very Marketplace, they could get the parts needed to repair this place at cost. Which, when combined with the various models of labor droids they had access to, would cut repair costs for the station down significantly. More importantly, Rylia would be able to strip out and sell major components of large merchant ships, frigates, and possibly even the occasional cruiser. Listing those parts as ‘damaged’ and ‘unsalvageable’ wouldn’t cause any flags to raise…and many of them were worth a lot compared to most of what she’d sold to the Marketplace before now.
Already, she’d sold the majority of the hulk that had damaged the station (and been left behind as too hard to remove for a sell off) to her System. Its drive core had sadly been a bust, being worth little more than the refined eezo in it. Several other major systems had been saleable as ‘used components’ though, including one entire engine and most of the ship’s kinetic barrier generators. Consoles, diagnostic systems, energy runs, atmospheric control systems. Etcetera and so on.
By the time she’d worked her way down to bare hull and sold it too as scrap metals, she’d racked up well over five and a half million in Marketplace credits. It was the second largest amount she’d ever had, surpassed by a mere three quarters of a million from when she’d emptied the entire scrapyard she’d bought on Nevos. Of course, she’d promptly spent a little over half of it to provide materials and components for the labor and repair droids to repair the two docks that were still functional up to a better standard. They would deal with the third, more heavily damaged dock, later.
Shaking her head, Rylia threw an arm around Momo.
“This was a brilliant call, Momoest! Even if, after this, we can only pull a percentage of the components from each wreck without someone eventually thinking something is off, it’s still going to give us a sizable working income for the Marketplace. Enough to push some of our projects into high gear.”
Momo shot her a happy smile at the praise…after rolling her eyes at the newest in a long series of nicknames. Kara nodded and spoke up with her own agreement a moment later.
“Rylia’s right. This is perfect, particularly since it will still turn a profit with our reduced need for real people. Though we’ll have to vet the handful we station here carefully. Quarians, probably. They’ll both be good at the work and are less likely to rat us out about the mechs, given how poorly most of the Citadel Races treat them. Though that will mean not letting any of the smarter droids work here.”
Rylia grimaced at that. Kara was right that Quarians would be perfect for the work, tending to know a lot about old ships and how to strip or maintain them as a matter of course. She was also, unfortunately, right about the droids. Anything that smacked of A.I. tended to freak Quarians out, for admittedly good reasons. Thankfully, her own RT-1 design used purely in-universe VIs. Good quality ones, but ones that any Quarian worth their salt would identify as a VI after even a cursory inspection.
Less fortunately, it meant they wouldn’t be able to leave any of the more advanced repair droids here, let alone something like an R-series or a JN-66. Both were at least seedling AIs pretty much out of the proverbial box. Jen, the JN-66 that assisted Rylia directly and never got wiped, was starting to show enough personality that she probably shouldn’t be using it in public any longer. Likewise, the R3s that ran her Slicer Pool were all showing signs of personalities, as she’d refrained from wiping them either. That particular droid series got amazingly more effective as they developed into proper AIs, and she liked the little guys just as much as many of their owners in that galaxy far far away did.
Thankfully, Momo had her eyes firmly on the prize.
“I’ve run the numbers multiple times. Even just the RT-1s will cut the labor costs down enough to still turn a profit, despite generous compensation for any employees and a chunk of the best profits being eaten by the Marketplace. Which is all we really need. So long as the facility isn’t showing a loss, it will look like just another investment. Much like the ‘human food’ restaurants on Nevos. The diversity of business types even helps us in the long-term, as fewer people will be surprised when we pivot into random fields here or there.”
Deciding to trust her expert to know what she was talking about there, Rylia turned her mind to what they could do with the influx of Marketplace credits.
“Well, some of the funds in the Marketplace need to go toward the Assault Shuttle project, obviously. But there should be plenty left over, since we’re entirely buying knowledge packs, not hardware. Sure, the info on making Slipstream Drives will chew up a million credits on its own, but that’s the only really big ticket item we need. Aside from that project’s needs, I was thinking we might want to grab some things to account for future expansion of the Medical R&D team?”
With that, Kara and Momo were both instantly engaged, helping Rylia figure out just what sort of medical tech would suit their goals, both public and private, the most…
… … …
Momo was pleased as she looked over the report that Dr. Dalisir had just given her. It had been eight months since she was first summoned now, and six since they’d gotten the Maiden’s Mercy Medical Think-Tank rolling. Being presented with not one, not two, but three viable new treatments that had made it through cloned-organ stage testing was amazing for such a short period of time.
Two of the three were for somewhat rare Asari medical conditions that affected the nervous system. Such things were legitimately rare for Asari since, as Rylia was fond of saying, Asari had ‘Bullshit Nervous Systems of Doom.’ A statement which, admittedly, Momo kinda had to agree with. Between how robust their nervous systems were and their cellular regeneration, it was really only rare mutations that caused nervous system issues with Asari.
Of course, that very rarity also meant they were rarely researched, so presenting treatments for those two diseases was going to draw positive attention. Particularly as one of them was a reproductive health issue which Asari took very seriously. Assuming Asari-testing stages went well, both treatments, one of which was an outright cure, would raise the visibility of Maiden’s Mercy in a big way.
Even better, the third disease was a well-known human disease. Specifically, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as just ALC or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Momo hadn’t actually realized it was still around in this version of humanity, as her own had resolved it. Mainly by use of Quirks that could affect nerves allowing better mapping and routes to finding a fix. The local version of humanity had made serious progress as well, having long since at least identified the causes and found decent treatments. Follow the newest chapters on NovelPing.
They hadn’t found an outright cure, though, and there was one potentially sitting on Momo’s desk. Curtesy, as it happened, of Miranda Lawson’s contributions and ideas. The young woman had needed a lot of help taking her ideas to completion, but Dr. Dalisir had made a firm point of attributing Miranda as the primary driving force behind it.
“This is exceptional work, Dr. Dalisir. How confident at you that these will hold up in Asari and Human testing?”
The good doctor was smiling broadly as she replied.
“Virtually one hundred percent that they work at least partially, Miss. Since we’re working with direct manipulation and regeneration of the nerves, there isn’t nearly as much inaccuracy as something like a drug-based treatment. This is closer to a surgery, but one that’s far more precise and less traumatic than that usually implies. I’m confident we’ll be able to breeze through standard testing, as there just flat out isn’t a lot that can go wrong that we wouldn’t have seen in the cloned tissue.”
Momo nodded acknowledgement to that, pleased as she filed the information away.
“Excellent, doctor. For even getting this far, I’m issuing a fifteen percent bonus to your entire department. If or when the treatments get fully through testing, I’ll provide another fifteen percent as well for each treatment. This is exactly the sort of outcome Rylia was hoping for by providing her breakthroughs to experts such as yourself.”
The Matron blinked in surprise. Her team was already fantastically well paid for their levels of experience, the potential for as much as a sixty percent bonus on top of that? That level of incentive was nearly unheard of. Even as she was trying to process that, Momo moved on.
“Moreover, I believe this proves your team is ready for more. Rylia has been holding on to some other possibilities that are a bit more complex, waiting to see how well your team performed. Frankly, I think you are ready for them now. Keep on top of your current projects. But expect to see both a budget increase that will allow you to triple the size of your team at your own discretion, and a data dump with some additional experimental breakthroughs to follow up on.”
For some reason that Momo couldn’t quite put her finger on, Dr. Dalisir seemed just a little frazzled when she congratulated her again and sent her on her way…
… … …
“Helllooo minions! I’ve got a special stream for you today! I have a guest with me! Let me introduce you all to my favorite fellow engineer, Kara Danvers! She’s not only almost as hot as me, she’s just as brilliant too!”
Kara blushed at Rylia’s trailing comment, but since she’d somehow gotten suckered into wearing one of the formfitting bodysuits Asari loved, there wasn’t any hiding that it was true. To any human, she’d be the very image of a classic blonde beauty. Despite not having powers, she still had the full measure of advantages given by thousands of years of Kryptonian gene editing. Which meant looking improbably gorgeous with barely a hint of makeup used. As for the name, it was one of several she’d used in the human world before, and they’d settled on it as being ‘mundane’ enough not to cause too much tongue wagging.
“Now, we’ve got a major treat for you today, as I’ve been toying around with my own mechs! Yes, yes, I have stuck a strapon on a couple of them, no need to ask! But you’re in the tech sub-channel right now, so we’re focusing on the mechs themselves today!”
Hands having come up to hide her face at the strapon comment, Kara made a sort of muffled-keening noise, causing Rylia to grin and take pity on her.
“As you can see, Kara is shyer than I am! So I’ll stop teasing her…for now~. I need her brain not to overheat, since she’s part of the secret to my new mech models! I’m pretty decent with a wrench, as you all know, but Kara here has a positive gift for working with robotics. When I managed to recruit her, I knew I was onto something special! So, let’s take a look!”
Gesturing for the camera to follow, the droid operated floating drone easily acting as their cameraman, Rylia looped an arm into Kara’s and towed her along. The workshop that came into view had two models of mech present, her own RT-1 and a new RK-1 model that Kara really had helped her with. It wasn’t even the slightest bit of a fib that Kara was a genius with robotics, and the new model was a serious improvement over the RT-1. With considerably better fine motor control and a superior VI.
“Now, on the left you’ll see my own attempt to make a mech. I was making some pretty good progress, you know! I even have a small production line set up for them, using them for some general dumb labor in the Erotic Delights factories. But they weren’t really all that special, only worth using because of my struggles in expanding fast enough to keep up with demand! Then Kara here came along, though, and the RK-1 model made some real breakthroughs!”
Entirely true, and much of the point of this stream. It would be interesting for the viewers, for course. But the real reason to rope Kara into the stream with her was to establish Kara as the reason they would be expanding into ‘industrial mechs’ in the not-so-distant future. Matriarchs keeping an eye on her businesses might even have already noticed the RT-1s being used at their reclamation station, though Rylia thought it unlikely for now.
They would be noticed eventually, though. So establishing the mechs as another line of business, even pretending that part of the reason they’d acquired the orbital salvage yard in the first place was to test them? That was just future proofing. Kara, as a ‘robotics genius,’ would serve as a visible source for why they’d expanded in this direction. Not to mention Rylia’s whole ‘I’m a Maiden’ thing would help them write off how erratic seeming the choices of which fields she expanded into would seem on the surface. Show someone an obvious explanation, to keep them from looking any deeper.
“Now, Kara, why don’t you tell us a bit about how these mechs differ from the janky piles of shit that most people think of when they think ‘labor mechs?’”
Kara had, thankfully, recovered from her embarrassment enough to give it a go.
“Well, a big part of it is improved VI, of course. But an even bigger part is what we’ve done with the frames. You’ll notice it in the hands, in particular, but we’ve managed a far finer degree of delicate control in both models-”
The stream would go on for over two hours, as they talked about the mechs, even stripping them down to show off some of the improvements. If the camera just so happened to occasionally linger on Kara or Rylia’s bodies a bit? Well, that was just to help keep her simps interested…
“Okay, so that’s Engine 2 checked out. Everything looks clean to me, you?”
Kara was looking over her own duplicate checks of the test run and follow up complete tear down they’d just finished of a new shuttle engine. After a few more seconds, she nodded sharply.
“Looks good to me, too. I have to admit, this is going smoother than I expected when we decided to jump straight into glueing multiple tech bases together like this. Even with all the time we spent modeling how they would interact, I sort of assumed we’d have more issues.”
Rylia snorted, throwing a half-hearted glare toward her companion.
“Don’t jinx it, Kara! The components and systems might all be working in workshop conditions, but eventually we have to fly this thing. In space. I’d rather things go wrong down here than when we are doing that!”
Kara looked sheepish at that, brushing a strand of hair back in a habitual nervous gesture.
“That is…a very good point. Don’t humans say something about a bad rehearsal being the sign of a good show? I don’t quite get it, since Kryptonians tended to model and simulate things half to death before ever doing even this much live testing. Though, the hands on approach is absolutely faster, I have to admit.”
Rylia nodded at that. No matter how much technical information you had crammed in your head, practical assembly always helped things click in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise. It had been true for Hazel as a human and was apparently just as true for Asari and Kryptonians. The three weeks they’d spent getting that crash course in everything shuttle related from Eri Te’leen, the young Asari Matron that her mother had arranged time with, had been invaluable in solidifying basic principles for shuttlecraft. Even if they weren’t making a pure Mass Effect tech shuttle.
As had acquiring their own for company use and studying it closely, to be fair. After a complete disassembly and reassembling of that shuttle, one of the best Asari models on the consumer market, they’d nixed the idea of bothering to make a pure ME tech shuttle. Instead, as Kara’s comment had indicated, they’d dipped into multiple other universes tech bases for their first small craft.
Not that it was honestly all that small, being a good 28 meters from nose to tail. It was, without question, an Assault Shuttle, rather than anything more peaceful. The oversized design (for a shuttle) had been required to combine the compact slipstream drive they’d taken from the Halo universe with other components. Namely, the scaled-up lastech weapons from Warhammer and shield technology from Star Wars. Plus, of course, the cloaking tech they were already using on the probes they’d deployed to check numerous locations.
The result, assuming the entire thing didn’t explode or vanish into a slipspace rupture, should be worth it. In pure spite of the fact it had already taken over two months and they weren’t even close to finished yet. After all, the shuttle would be able to easily transport twenty people reasonably comfortably, or double that number of the combat mechs they were still perfecting. All while being both capable of stealth and capable of long-distance FTL travel without a Relay.
The slipstream drive they’d managed to create would be slower than the near-instant point-to-point transit of a Relay. Yet, that was only for the Relays. It would be a fair bit faster than the non-Relay FTL that ships used to move within the radius of systems around a Relay. Overall, most travel times would average out to about the same, excepting only where you would otherwise be making only single jumps between systems that both had Relays. The benefit, of course, was that you could both travel to places the Relays didn’t go and not travel along known and observed routes.
Overall, it was a better drive technology than the Kryptonian hyperdrive they’d put into the probes. Though, unfortunately, the shuttle they were making was about as small as they could realistically shrink a slipstream drive to. Meaning the Kryptonian hyperdrive tech still has some significant value in and of itself.
“Well, the engine testing is done, the hyper-fusion core hybrid is solid, and the weapons tests need to wait until we aren’t on the planet. That just leaves the stealth, sensor, shield, and atmospheric systems, really. Atmospheric systems next, you think?”
Kara hummed at the question, then nodded.
“Yes, that makes the most sense. All three of the others can be moved around on the exterior as needed. But the life support can’t be adjusted as easily later. Let’s knock it out, then the stealth systems so we can start basic flight testing.”
Rylia nodded along. At the rate they were going, it would probably be another month at least before they could fully test the prototype. Still, by meshing so much together now, it would be much faster when they started building bigger ships. Not to mention that, once they had a stealth shuttle or two available, they could move against the Shadow Broker. The probes had already found his ship, and they’d all agreed it was a good move…
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
A/N 1: A better source of stuff to sell to the System store! This was planned for a while, as the knowledge Rylia is going to need from the Omniversal Market is going to get increasingly costly as she ramps up.
A/N 2: I'm going to be upfront here and admit I know almost nothing about ALS, which is why I didn't go into any sort of detail. I literally went to the MAYO clinic database and looked for Nervous System Diseases which no one really knows the cause of. I figured that was the best way to find a nerve-related disease that even a future version of humanity might not have a CURE for yet. Though I did give them credit for having at least figured out the CAUSE and come up with treatments by the point the story starts.
A/N 3: Yes, they are planning to do the stereotypical thing that inserts do and take over the Shadow Broker Network. As much as I hate writing clichés, the truth is that it just makes too much sense to avoid it purely out of dislike for writing such.
A/N 4: So you can always just be patient ;-).